


Seeing in Bright Colors

by ValidEmail (orphan_account)



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: Multi, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-27 01:34:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15013808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/ValidEmail
Summary: Each family member found their soulmate, the colors of the world, in varying ways. A short, drabbly piece meant to get me back into the swing of things.





	Seeing in Bright Colors

**Author's Note:**

> i've been gone for so long I'M SO SORRY :<( i was really focused on the end of school i had no time to write . i'm hoping to post a oneshot or two every friday for the next three weeks while i'm taking a course at a local college, and when that's over i'll start writing actual full-length fics again. i love you guys so much, thanks for sticking it out for me ! - annie 
> 
> (PS this is shit, sorry)
> 
> (PPS to the people who read my shit chapter of whatever fanfic i posted like mid-june - i was not trying to erase cordelia's sexuality. i apologize so much that it came off like that. :( )

Marvin Cohen didn’t know what color the sky was. He didn’t know what grass looked like, or roses in full bloom, despite all of the times he had bought them for Trina. They all were the same grated grey color, mixing and blending as though they were exact copies of one another over and over again. His son’s curly hair was a mystery to him, as were his wife’s eyes, or her soft hand color. She was a pale grey, wrinkles darkening around her skin. Marvin supposed she looked different to her son, who sometimes described her as a light in a hallway, but he was always the same to the both - dark and hunched over. Sad. Defeated. A man who had tried so hard to avoid himself that he had managed to lose any chance of meeting his soulmate along the way.

Marvin supposed, though, that not meeting his soulmate was an okay thing for him to deal with. Despite the women he had been affiliated with over the years, such as his drama teacher or his high school sweetheart, none of them was the factor that caused him to see color - and neither was Trina. When they had met that one cold day in November, years back, and their eyes met, he had seen no color explode. Trina hadn’t either. But they were lonely, and all of their friends had found their soulmates. All of their friends were happy. Why couldn’t they be? Why couldn’t they be happy together? Marvin knew the answer, and he suspected Trina did too, but they still refused to say it out loud, despite the riff that one simple phrase was causing between them.

The first color he saw was sun-kissed brown. It was the color of the stranger beside him, his hair, at least, though his skin was tan. His eyes were a dark brown, haunting in the dim lighting of the bar both were sat at. His tan fingers had wrapped themselves around the drink Marvin had bought him, and he was wearing an open-mouthed grin, one that showed off his pearly teeth, when their eyes connected. The color exploded in front of his eyes like fireworks, spreading across the scenery around him to show him every single little detail he had been missing in his colorless world. Like how the man beside him was wearing a teal shirt with the collar popped, and the open sign was buzzing a fluorescent blue. Though his heart was pounding, and his head felt like it was about to explode, one sly smile from the man who was his soulmate made him finally get back home at around two in the morning.

Trina had fallen asleep by then, and he saw her, finally, for what she was. A tired woman who put up with his antics for the sake of her son. She was beautiful, prettier with color, and her face always looked younger when she slept. He attempted to wrap his arms around her waist, to pretend as though finally her eyes had brought color into his world, but every time he closed them he saw the face of that man, Whizzer Brown, and the grins he had shot him throughout their night together.

 

Trina Cohen didn’t think she needed color in her life to get by. She had her son, Jason, and Marvin, sometimes. Those two boys were enough for her. At least, she thought that if she kept repeating that, it would ring true. Still, her heart wept those lonely nights for a man to love her and show her color, one that wasn’t her current husband. She wanted to see the color of the sunset, of her son’s eyes, of her own skin. Sometimes she wished she could see Marvin in color, maybe so that she could crack open some of the secrets he might be hiding in his black-and-white clothing.

It wasn’t hard to tell that Marvin could see color after a particular night in which he hadn’t come home until she was fast asleep. He picked out his clothes more carefully and studied her in a way she remembered him doing back when they were in college when they were in love. He watched Jason, and, for a moment, she saw his eyes well up with tears as his son pranced around their kitchen, grabbing various things he needed for school that day. Then, the vulnerability was gone, and he was slipping out the door for another day of work, leaving Trina behind so that she could put on her own work clothes to head out monotonically.

All throughout that day, and the days that continued afterward, she tried to convince herself that maybe he hadn’t cheated on her before meeting his soulmate. Maybe they had bumped into each other on the street. After all, there were millions of people in New York City. She caught a hickey on Marvin’s neck one night when they were going to bed, and overheard the last bit of conversation with a mysterious lover late at night. It made the anger pool in her stomach. His soulmate was not the first secret lover he had hidden from her.

In some ways, she was terribly jealous. Why hadn’t she been the one to show him color? Why couldn’t she have met her soulmate before him? It didn’t seem fair that he got to hold the woman (she told herself it was a woman, anyhow) that was now in full rainbow, while the man who would eventually show her color was absent from her life. It made her angry, and upset. How could he? They had had a deal when they had discovered Trina was pregnant. Both would be faithful, despite the yearning for their individual soulmates. She made Marvin sleep on the couch, and cried herself to sleep, dreaming of a colorful word with a man she truly loved holding her hand to guide her through it.

Mendel was not the man she had been expecting, but when Trina finally met his kind eyes and saw for the first time that she could see the green flecks mixed with brown within them, she decided it wasn’t so bad. He touched her softly, hugging her as both realized, stunningly, they were soulmates. His blue sweater was terribly ugly, and yet it made her laugh. Her hair was mousy, and yet Mendel stared at her as though she had hung the moon in the sky. Handing those tan colored divorce papers to Marvin, being able to see the color float up in his face as he read them, was the best feeling in the world. Besides clutching Mendel’s hand in her own as she finally fell asleep with him for the first time in their new apartment, letting her breath still against his dark curls.

  
Charlotte DuBois could still remember, second per second, what it was like to meet Cordelia Baker on their college campus in California. She was an Oregon native, true and true, coming from a family of hard-working Americans who couldn’t seem to catch a break. Though her parents tentatively accepted her being a lesbian, as they loved her too much to let her drift off into the world alone, she still felt terribly, terribly unwanted. Her seat at the dinner table was always too far away from the others, from her brother and his wife, her mother and father, her grandparents who hardly knew the secret she had only told her parents about a year before. Her only girlfriend had been an exchange student from France, one she fell hard and fast until she left twelve months later.

Cordelia was marching in a pride parade happening close to their campus that day, cheeks streaked with colors her best friend, Whizzer Brown, had promised her the lesbian pride flag colors - despite the fact that he also couldn’t see color. Her roommate had agreed with him though, and her current boyfriend was her soulmate, so she had trusted the two enough to step outside of her dorm room with her sign that read ‘WE’RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE’ and her very gay outfit. Whizzer came along, though he disappeared to flirt with some of the men towards the start of the parade right when they arrived, leaving Cordelia to fend for herself. Charlotte was exiting the library on the edge of campus, as her eyes landed on the back of Cordelia’s white head and her breath was stolen away by the hot weather of nearing summer. Though she could not see color, whomever that girl was was the object of pure beauty. She marched along quickly, acting like she was born to hold up a sign and parade around. Charlotte dropped her books on the marble steps, for once not caring about her schoolwork, feeling her heart tug in the direction of that girl.

Charlotte ran down the steps, feet smacking against the pavement. She pushed her way through the ground, earning many a curse and a dirty look. She couldn’t care less. The girl in front of her, the one with the curls, who was running like she could fly, ended up right in her line of vision.

Charlotte tapped her on the shoulder shakily, as though her life depended on it. The girl spun around, and their eyes met. Charlotte could see the blue in the girl’s pretty, doe eyes, the blond in her curls. The darkness of Charlotte’s own skin. The girl was looking at her in awe, a smile drifting onto her face as she stepped closer. Charlotte noticed how much taller she was.

“I’m Cordelia,” The girl told her softly, the crowd around them murmuring at the fact that both girls were staring at one another like they had lost all ability to think. “It’s nice to meet you, soulmate.” She stuck one of her pale hands out, soft skin gesturing for Charlotte to shake it. After a moment, she did.

“Charlotte,” She replied, an easy grin slipping onto her face as their hands stayed connected, and dropped between them. “Mind if I join you?”

  
Jason Cohen met his soulmate in eighth grade, a year after his father’s world had returned to black and white. A year after he realized soulmates were overrated. If they were just gonna die eventually, why bother? He saw what Whizzer’s death did to his dad. It tore him apart, both literally and figuratively. Now his own dad was in the hospital with the same sickness, but he didn’t even seem like it bothered him that much. He talked as though once he died he’d find Whizzer, and see color again. Jason didn’t believe in God. He didn’t believe in soulmates, either.

His mother and father, his real ones, had fought all the time before the divorce. After that, too, but before it was even worse. They’d scream at each other for hours, about things that Jason didn’t think really mattered. Marvin’s extra work hours, Trina’s friendship with the cashier down at the bodega across the street, so on and so forth. They weren’t soulmates, and Jason knew that, no matter how much they tried to hide that fact from their son. If they were soulmates, they would be happy together. Marvin wouldn’t have abandoned them for Whizzer. While the pent-up aggression Jason had about that fact had long-since disappeared, he still felt slightly salty about everything that had happened in his life. Most of it was caused by the whole soulmate thing. Colors. Whatever. He didn’t need one.

A new girl had moved to their school in Manhattan. Her name was Heather Levin, and he heard it whispered throughout the class as though she was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. He didn’t care. He was waiting for the phone call that Charlotte would make to the middle school to excuse him from class and bring him to the hospital to see his dad. It was coming closer. Marvin was frail, and he could barely stand now without something to assist him. Since Whizzer wasn’t there like his dad had been for his lover, another family member had to help him.

In Science class, they were split into the lab partners they’d have for the whole semester. Jason had been praying for one of his nerdy friends so that he could doze off in class, thinking about the health predicament of his dad and the stupidity of soulmates, when his name was called - along with Heather’s. The gasps of the class were loud, but not loud enough to make Jason turn his head to look at the new girl trailing after him while they got up to head over to their lab table. Both stood beside the blue thing, Jason tracing a pattern in the written words of the eighth graders before him, and glanced up at the clock. Ten more minutes until the time Charlotte had promised she’d call the day before.

“Hi,” Heather’s voice was soft, like caramel, and her strands of hairs were brushing up against his neck, due to the fact that they were very long. “I’m Heather. If I’m being honest, I’m not very good at Science.” Jason ignored her pointedly, staring at the clock as though that would make the second-hand move faster. He could practically feel the awkwardness radiating off of Heather, and thought that maybe they wouldn’t make such a bad pair. Two awkward people weren’t as awkward together. He knew that because of Mendel and his mom.

“Jason?” Heather asked, and, with a dramatic sigh, Jason turned towards her, rolling his eyes as he did so. His mouth opened to make a snooty remark about her, or her hair, or her outfit - when their eyes met, and he watched as color flooded his vision. Both inhaled sharply. “Oh my God.”

“I-I…” Jason stammered out and shook his head. He couldn’t be meeting his soulmate now. In eighth grade? His parents would call him lucky. It took Marvin thirty-seven years to find his, and even then his soulmate had been ripped away from him three years later. Trina still had hers, as did Charlotte, but still. They were old when they found each other. Both he and Heather were only fourteen. “I can’t believe it.”

“Are you...are you disappointed?” Heather asked him tentatively, eyes shining like blue pools. They looked like Cordelia’s. “I have to say, I did not expect this to happen so young.”

“How am I the lucky one?” Jason burst out and then flushed when Heather raised an eyebrow in his direction. “I just...soulmates are always so awful to the people who get them. How did I meet you so early in life? How’d life think that we’d be ready?” Heather smiled at him again, shimmering and beautiful. He felt the tips of his ears turn pink. She took his hand into her slowly, nervously, and squeezed reassuringly. He saw the pale on pale. His lips tilted upwards.

“I think you need a friend more than a soulmate right now,” Heather began, and Jason started to reply with a nervous smile of his own, something he hadn’t done in a long time. “I think we both do.” Jason nodded, and then finally tuned back in to the directions of their teacher, holding Heather’s hand, ignoring the clock on the wall. When he was called down to the office ten minutes later, he saw New York City alight with color for the first time, and felt the small slip of paper on which Heather had written her phone number in his hand. His heart lifted from the rut it had gotten stuck in for the last year slightly, and while he walked through the hospital hallway he thought of Heather’s smile. His shirt was blue. He could see that now.

**Author's Note:**

> like i said, this is super short and just meant to get me back into everything. i've been gone almost a month - eeep


End file.
